FKBPL Is a Potential Prognostic Biomarker and Correlated with Immune Infiltrates and T Cells Exhaustion in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a malignant tumor with high mortality and poor prognosis. And FKBPL plays a crucial role on the development of cancers. This study aims to explore the prognostic potential of FKBPL and comprehensively analyze the correlations between FKBPL, immune infiltration, and T cells function in HCC. GEO database, Oncomine databases, TIMER2.0 and GEPIA2 were used to analyze FKBPL expression, relationship between FKBPL expression and survival of HCC patients as well as immune infiltration, related gene marker sets and T cells exhaustion in HCC. We used STRING database to analysis PPI (protein-protein interaction) for FKBPL and visualization by Cytoscape. Metascape was used for enrichment analysis. FKBPL upregulates in most of the cancer types including HCC. Survival analysis demonstrated that FKBPL shows significant impact on survival of HCC patients with overall survival and disease-free survival. And survival rate of HCC patients with high FKBPL expression was significantly correlated with race, gender and tumor purity of HCC patients. Moreover, FKBPL expression positively correlates with high immune infiltration levels in most of the immune cells and functional T cells including exhausted T cells, Th1, Th2 and Tfh. Specifically, multiple key genes of exhausted T cells comprising PD-1, CTLA4, LAG3, TIM-3, and GZMB have remarkable interaction with FKBPL. At last, we found10 genes including PRRT1, ANKRD49, RBCK1, CSNK1D, HSP90AA1, HSP90AB1, GTSE1, CDKN1A, AVPR2, and EGFL8 were interacted with FKBPL. Enrichment analysis showed that apoptotic signaling pathway, regulation of myeloid cell differentiation, cell death in response to oxidative stress, PIP3 activates AKT signaling may involve in HCC tumor progression about FKBPL. In conclusion, FKBPL is a potential prognostic biomarker and correlated with immune infiltrates and T cells exhaustion in HCC.